It was on Saturday afternoon that the Slytherin-Gryffindor war ended in a cascade of explosions. Alexandra was walking on a corridor on the second floor, with several Hufflepuffs near her, when they heard a series of shouts, yells and a loud grumbling like someone had collapsed a major part of the castle.
All the persons present including Alexandra ran in the direction of the stairs and stopped immediately. Neville Longbottom was there, as were Leo Black and Ronald Weasley, all three unconscious. A third-year Gryffindor was lying along to them, tied in ropes. The part of the corridor where they were lying was in ruins, as someone had annihilated it in an explosion. A pool of blood was growing on the floor, making gasp those who were discovering the scene. On the wall near the three vanquished first-years and the tied third-year, large words painted in green were written: "NOT INVINCIBLE". The message couldn't have been clearer.
"Call the professors and Madam Pomfrey! Now!" Shouted a Hufflepuff prefect who had just ran into here.
"Alert the professors! The ghosts! The portraits!" The older student was in full panic mode, hyperventilating, his visage a red tomato colour and his legs and arms shaking significantly. A glance showed similar symptoms among the other Hufflepuffs. Not Duellists in that group, this much was evident.
Some Hufflepuffs went away alerting the teachers, while older students cut the ropes and try to reanimate the Gryffindors. Fortunately, while all of them remained unconscious, none were in danger of dying. Their wounds were qualified as "superficial" by the Hufflepuffs having magical healing knowledge, and Alexandra took their word for it. The arrival of Professor McGonagall and Snape on the scene forced the crowd of students to disperse, the attack being now the subject of every conversation on all lips.
The repercussions of the new aggression once it was known were astonishingly quick, given how the professors and the rest of the adults had handled the pranks and the attacks until then. Headmaster Albus Dumbledore himself had returned to the castle at once, summoned all the students to the Great Hall before dinner, and expressed himself "disappointed" in the students.
"This aggression on Mr Longbottom and his friends is intolerable!" Affirmed with a certain dose of hypocrisy the Headmaster, as there had been a similar attack perpetrated on two Slytherins less than twenty-four hours ago. "I can assure you the culprits once they are found will be severely punished!"
At this moment, Alexandra had to acknowledge Dumbledore was a very dangerous man. For an instant, the old senile man with a grandfather persona ceased to exist, replaced by a tyrant with a flow of magic expulsed by his body like a miniature storm. A sort of power aura was surrounding him, his fingers were almost expulsing miniature sparks and he silenced the crowd of students with a piercing stare.
One moment it was there, and the moment after the flow of magic was gone, the grandfather character making his return. The rest of the speech was fairly uninteresting: the pranks had to stop now, should the culprits denounce themselves their admission would be recognised when assigned detentions, those who had thrown "exotic" spells had to present themselves to the infirmary to give the counter-curses to Madam Pomfrey, and so on.
Watching all the students in the Great Hall, Alexandra doubted the speech of the Headmaster would incite many to reveal their culpability. Some who had done one pranks spells or two, perhaps, but not the masterminds of the prank war. There had been incidents that had broken all the rules this week at Hogwarts. A good example was the act that had flooded the toilets in the dungeons. Anyone who did that prank would be the recipient of Professor Snape's hate, a fate a student generally didn't want to be on the receiving end of. There had been cursed mail, spiked drinks and food in the Great Hall. Trapped Toilets, trapped bathrooms. Spells making your clothes invisible, thankfully Alexandra hadn't been caught by that one. Fireworks, destruction of homework, charming the ink to make it another colour or destructive to parchment. Hundreds of dung bombs had been launched in the unlikeliest places. Truly, the quantity of prank items and potions used in a week had been beyond imagination. The Slytherins and the Gryffindors were already whispering between themselves, and the words "slimy snakes" and "imbecilic lions" were loud enough to be heard. No student looked particularly repentant for any malicious prank they had made nor looked ready to be voluntary for hours and hours of cleaning in detention.
Several teachers, especially Professor Snape and Sinistra, former members of Slytherin, looked disgusted by the principle of Dumbledore intervening only when the Snakes began to strike back against the Lions and Neville Longbottom. The prank war would cease; it was less likely any member of the House would be on friendly term for this year of school. As this speech had gone on, the Boy-Who Lived, Black and Weasley were at the heart of the Gryffindor formation, the entire House ready to defend them should any party try an attack. All the Lions were smirking or showing arrogance on their face, and why shouldn't they? Alexandra had recognised Dumbledore's actions as a measure to protect the hero of the wizarding world and his supporters from heavy retaliation; older and more influential children had understood it too. It was a blatant show of favouritism to shield the Lions from their own actions. It also left the Slytherins unpunished. A subtle and perfect way to ensure the Gryffindor-Slytherin tensions would persist for the rest of the year, if not longer.
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